Morning Thanks--winter again

When I put out the garbage yesterday, I discovered more snow than I thought. Nothing like Cheyenne--maybe you've seen pictures: the streets are cavernous. Denver had a couple feet. Most of the world west of us had lots and lots more. 

Not much melted yesterday, so just outside my window there's still an inch or two, mostly untouched. Some bunny walked by out back--you can see his tracks. He probably visited the spread of provinder the birds leave beneath the feeders. That bright light, upper right, is likely a cattle truck coming up 60. Just beneath it, two long rectangles are visible now--they hadn't been for a couple months. After the storm, they're happily quilted with spongy and wet stuff, the snow that packs into great snowballs and rolls into snowmen (these days, are woke kids making snow women?).

Snow in March is often perfectly beautiful, but late winter spreads of the white stuff prove beyond a doubt that beauty is in the eye of the beholder because no one I know--including me--looks outside on a day this late in winter, sees the earth in ermine, and goes all breathless and artsy. Nope. We just want to be done with it all. 

Saturday I saw my first robin, about the biggest thrill I've had since the virus raised its infernal pestilence. Here he is.

And then this too, not a surprise really, but still a thrill.

And, no, those pellets beyond the nubbins aren't m&ms that somehow doffed their colorful candy coats. They're as much a testimony of that backyard bunny--or two or three or four--as those tracks in the new snow, just the refuse of a long winter. "Hops," our granddaughter calls them, so we do too.

It's the snow out that's the story. It's here again, fleetingly, I'm sure. By the weekend it'll be gone, maybe before. Schools were called yesterday, but what we got didn't blow or drift, just plopped down to rest and fade away. It'll melt slowly and sweetly right into those garden boxes, maybe a whole inch of moisture the world out here needs even more of.

It's a blessing, a great white blessing, even--maybe especially--this time of year. Hurts to say it a little, but it's good darn reason for thanksgiving. We're all just plain tired of winter. 

Still, I'm thankful. We all are. 

We just reserve the right to grumble a little.